United States of America

"America is under attack!" one of the President's advisors whispered to George W. Bush, visiting a school in Sarasota, just seconds after the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Soon afterwards the President was on board Air Force One talking to his administration about what to do and how to react to the attacks. In the following days Bush and his advisors had to clarify who the guilty were, how to catch them and where to get help.

The wire puller was found quickly. On September 15 George W. Bush met with his national security advisors at Camp David. Afterwards he told reporters that Saudi Osama Bin Laden was the prime suspect. Bush's aim was to catch Bin Laden and to destroy his terror network al-Qaeda. So the next step was to find allies for a fight against terrorism. While European states immediately demonstrated total solidarity, it was much harder for the U.S. government to include questionable partners like Pakistan into their world wide coalition. For a war against the Taliban, who were hiding and supporting Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda, it was not only necessary to provide many soldiers, but also to have ground presence and military bases in Arabian countries like Saudi Arabia or the Oman.

On September 12 the NATO proclaimed Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which ratified the terrorist attacks on the United States of America as being an attack on all member states. On September 14 the president provided a $40 billion emergency response package, specifically to help the economy deal with the disaster.

On September 24 President Bush signed an Executive Order freezing the assets of 27 organizations and persons known to be linked to al-Qaeda and suspected of funding terrorism.

On October 7 the United States started the war in Afghanistan. American and British jet fighters launched strikes against Bin Laden's training camps and Taliban facilities.

The attacks also changed U.S. immigration policy. In December 2001 the Justice Department interviewed nearly 5,000 Arabs or Muslims who were not citizens of the United States. Some of them were later arrested for immigration violations.

September 11 also halted an initiative by the Mexican President Fox and U.S. President Bush to allow undocumented Mexican workers, who already were in the USA, to become legal residents.

On October 26, 2001 President George W. Bush signed into law the controversial "USA Patriot Act. This allows law enforcement officials to wiretap phones, to intercept and monitor electronic communications, to survey financial, medical and student records, to break into offices or homes without prior notification and to deport or detain non-citizens without judicial appeal.

After criticism of U.S. intelligence services mounted in the beginning of 2002, CIA and FBI reformed and modernized. The FBI, for instance, hired 400 analysts and fluent speakers of Arabic, Middle Eastern and South Asian languages, shifted nearly 500 agents from violent crime and drug investigation to terrorism fighting and created an office of intelligence to gather, analyze and share national security information about terrorist activities. The "USA Patriot Act" increased the FBI's power to amass information during terrorism investigations. Agents were also given more power to observe religious and political groups or to visit houses of worship without evidence that a crime had been committed.